Things That Go Bump In The Night
by Telemain's Daughter
Summary: Scully and Mulder head to Nebraska to investigate a dormant X-File that's just caught a new lead. But they're not the only people hunting the supernatural in America-the Winchesters are already on the case, bringing danger and lies as usual. (Mild Sculder, young!Dean and baby!Sam)


_A/N: I recently started watching The X-Files and am totally in love with it. I noticed at the end of the credits that it was filmed in British Colombia, which got me to thinking... What if they ever met up with the characters of another show notoriously filmed in BC, Supernatural? And then I just couldn't help myself. Enjoy my lack of self-restraint. Let me know what you think; reviews make my day!_

 _Set sometime in the first season of TXF, which places it firmly pre-show for the Winchesters._

 _All rights belong to the creators._

* * *

 _Outside Fenton, Nebraska_

Stevie Nicks and cigarette smoke mingled in the humid air of the kitchen. The sleeves of Wanda's rayon dress clung to her arms in a clammy sweat. Nine o'clock on a Saturday night, half a pack of Lucky Strikes in, and she was no closer to knowing what to do now that Ben was gone.

"Mama?"

They would most likely lose the farm, unless she could find somebody to work it for her. As it was, the cost of hiring extra men for the corn harvest would eat into whatever profits she would glean this year. If the corn survived that long.

"Mama?"

Wanda turned the radio down. "What, baby?"

"What's for dinner?" Zoe turned her serious little gaze on her mother and Wanda felt a new stab of dull-edged guilt. She'd forgotten to fix food again.

"I don't know, baby. Spaghetti and franks. I don't know. Where's your brother?"

"Outside."

"Well, get him inside. Almost dark. Lord, and get cleaned up, too. I bet he's filthier than you are. Do y'all just roll in the dirt outside? Go get your brother."

Zoe and Kevin, Wanda thought as she lit another cigarette. They'd loved Ben almost as much as she had. She and Ben had been thinking of getting married if the crops were good for the next couple years. Then to find him in the barn like that—Wanda thanked God in a roundabout way that her kids hadn't been the first ones up that morning. They'd been acting up ever since, though, staying out all day and never telling her where they'd been. Kev was talking back and Zoe was barely talking at all. She didn't have it in her to punish them. She figured the world would punish them enough. It certainly had done to her.

She stubbed out the cigarette, adding a new scar to the kitchen table, and stepped out onto the back porch. "Where you all at? Come on, now, it's dinner time."

There was no answer from the yard. The dry trees shivered in a dusty breeze, and beyond the edge of the yard the cornfields whispered in the everlasting summer twilight.

"Zoe? Kevin? Come inside now!" Wanda stepped off the porch, wrapping her arms around herself. The corn began to shift and murmur. She frowned. A yellowish light was bobbing above the corn. Too big to be a firefly, and coming closer.

"Kids?" Wanda stumbled back to the porch. "Is somebody out there?"

The light winked out, leaving only the rustling corn to answer Wanda's calls.

* * *

 _Lincoln, Nebraska_

"Eat your food, Sammy, stop pushing it around."

Dean watched his younger brother in frustration as he made fortifications out of waffle crusts and egg bits. The first time in days they actually got to eat at a diner, and he was wasting food.

"I'm not hungry," Sammy mumbled. He looked longingly towards the counter where their father was paying. Dean wished, for Sammy's sake, that their father would quit pumping the waitress for the latest gory rumors and come back and finish eating with them.

No such luck. "Come on boys, let's go. Sammy, why didn't you finish your eggs? Don't waste food like that."

Dean gave togetherness one last shot. "Hey, Sammy, did you show Dad how you can spell 'eggs' now?"

Sammy proudly produced a diner napkin with the word EGGS scrawled over it repeatedly. His father barely glanced at it.

They drove to the nearest motel in their usual relative silence. Their father dropped them in the room, but he wasn't staying.

"I have some leads to follow up," he said, putting on a suit jacket and struggling into a tie.

"Where?" Sammy asked.

"You don't need to know. Dean, look after your brother."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't let anyone in until you hear my signal."

"No, sir."

"And work on that spelling list I gave you, Sammy. You should be way ahead of where you are."

Sammy didn't answer, scuffing at the dingy shag carpet with his shoe. Their father turned to Dean instead, who swallowed a disloyal burn of resentment and said, "Yes, sir."

* * *

 _Maryland, outside Washington D.C._

An insistent ringing woke Special Agent Dana Scully from an exhausted sleep. She groped for her alarm clock. The face read 5.43 AM, the green digital numbers blinking innocently up at her. The ringing continued. She snagged the telephone instead and sat up, holding it experimentally to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Scully, it's me."

"Mulder, it's not even six o'clock yet."

"Well, good morning sunshine. Weren't you telling me the other day that you've always wanted to go to Nebraska?"

"I don't remember saying any such thing. Does this have to do with an x-file?"

"You wound me, Scully. You're so suspicious."

"And you're so predictable. All right, I'll bite. What's in Nebraska?"

"Read this morning's paper."

"Mulder, I'm not even out of bed yet."

"I'll wait." He cheerfully started humming jazzy hold music on the other end of the line. Scully glared at the receiver, then set it on her nightstand and padded barefoot out of her apartment to the communal mailboxes.

"What am I looking for?" she asked, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder as she climbed back into bed.

"Page ten, section A. Bottom left hand corner."

"'Crops failing in blight, mysterious illness shutters Fenton, NE,'" she read out. "There are also reports of strange lights, a suicide, and... two children disappeared in a cornfield."

"It's not the first time this has happened, either," Mulder said, the familiar edge of excitement in his voice.

"Of course it's not," Scully murmured.

"There are reports every ten years or so of blight and sickness in Fenton."

"Perhaps the town is near an old factory. The run-off could have poisoned the water supply and still be affecting the ecosystem."

"The Bogelman Grain Refinery, actually. Chemical run-off has been the official line for years, but the EPA has never found any clear evidence, and the problem hasn't responded to traditional clean-up efforts. But chemical nastiness doesn't explain the reports—decades of eyewitness accounts—of lights, out in the fields."

"Next you'll be telling me the locals have found crop circles." Scully pulled the curtains open and brought out her overnight bag, already knowing how the rest of her day was going to go.

The sound of rustling paper filtered over the line. "No... but this is definitely the first time anyone's gone missing."

"Every kidnapping is not automatically aliens, Mulder," Scully said, gentling her voice to take the sting out of her words, mindful of his sister's memory.

"Not aliens this time, Scully. The boogey-man."


End file.
